Using simple technology to save lives on-farm
27th September 2021
Farm safety issues remain very much in the spotlight, with the Health and Safety Executive recently issuing a warning after a spate of farm deaths. With this in mind, we
Farm safety issues remain very much in the spotlight, with the Health and Safety Executive recently issuing a warning after a spate of farm deaths. With this in mind, we caught up with Aberdeenshire farmer Marc Skivington about his popular safety app Smart Farmer, and how it could help to reduce deaths and injuries on farm.
The latest HSE figures, published in July, show there were 41 deaths in the agriculture, forestry and fishing industries in 2020/21 – almost double last year’s figure of 21. In August, the HSE urged farmers and farmworkers to prioritise farm safety after four fatalities were reported in just two weeks.
With these sobering statistics at the forefront of our minds, simple technology to help farmers improve safety has never been more essential.
The Smart Farmer app was created by Marc Skivington, who manages a 1,800ha business at Slainspark Farm, growing combinable crops, seed potatoes, turnips and daffodils; milking 400 dairy cows and fattening 52,000 pigs a year, as well as managing a 300-head beef herd. The farm also has a 400kW anaerobic digester, a 500kW wind turbine and a 400kW biomass plant.
When Marc wanted to improve safety and make machinery checks easier on his own farm, he found the available technology was lacking and decided to create his own app, which launched at Lamma ’20. Since then, it has seen numerous updates and now offers not only a simple way of completing machinery checks, but also features to improve lone worker safety, field hazard identification, training, risk assessments and more.
As a result, it was voted as one of the top five must-have safety apps by farmers during Farm Safety Week last year. It has also picked up a range of other awards, including Agri-Tech Innovator of the Year at the British Farming Awards and a Royal Highland Show Silver Award for Technical Innovation.
Marc is now investing £40,000 into various additional updates over the coming months, to meet various requirements following feedback from users. Further information will be revealed in due course.
The software explained
The app and cloud-based software uses a simple traffic light system to help operators complete checks on machinery and equipment before starting work, as well as keeping up-to-date with maintenance, servicing and training. Checklists are easily customisable, so you can opt for just a few checks, or a more comprehensive list. Farmers and other users can record pre- start checks on their mobile phones, with QR codes used to identify machines quickly, while the app’s traffic light system shows the state of machinery at a glance. Users can also view ongoing raised and resolved issues, adding a photo to make a raised issue easier to identify.
The app works with all types of machinery and is available on Apple and Android phones. It can be used by unlimited users and machines, and with the industry becoming increasingly aware of farm safety, it can be used as a tool for planned preventative maintenance (PPM).
As well as helping farmers to comply with the law, it enables employers, managers and operators to better communicate and take responsibility for machine safety.
Other features of the app include risk assessments, training documents and the ability to record and print service reports and daily usage of machinery. This means risk assessments are easily accessible from the user’s phone – saving paper and avoiding them being hidden away in the back of a cupboard. The app can also give reminders when a service is due.
As a cloud-based service, data is shared with everyone on the farm, so that all team members know the status and condition of the equipment.
Recent updates
Lone working and field hazard identification were recently added to the app to further improve its safety benefits.
The lone working feature allows administrators to set how often the system checks workers’ latitude and longitude coordinates, so if they are the same as on the previous reading, an alert will be sent to the operator and administrator. The administrator will receive a link to the operator’s location so they can check on their safety.
Lone working is commonplace in agriculture and comes with the potential for higher risks and more severe consequences if workers are not able to summon help quickly. Those responsible for farm businesses have a legal duty to themselves and their workers to put in place reasonable safety measures – so this new feature will be a welcome addition.
Meanwhile, within the Smart Farmer web portal, fields can now easily be added by the admin of the site, creating a field boundary and utilising the simple key to plot all hazards on the map. Additional hazards can be added to the key for future reference. When the operator enters the field boundary, they receive a notification providing a map to highlight all of the hazards within the field.
For more information contact Smart Farmer or sign up for a free 28-day trial via www.smartfarmerapp.co.uk.
